Spingtime Gardening
Saturday we put most of the garden in. We planted
20 tomato plants of varying types
16 jalapeños
2 purple bell peppers
2 rows of beans (wax beans, green beans, and an heirloom variety called Black Valentine)
1 hill of watermelon (3 plants)
3 hills of pumpkins (Snack Jack hull-less variety)
12 cabbages (9 green, 3 red)
Of course, I didn’t check the weather. Luckily, Bill’s dad called and told us that it was supposed to get down to 25 that night. Bill covered everything up in the early evening but it look like we still lost about 30% of the tomatoes. We did put the garden in about 2 weeks early, but it has been so warm!
Last year we planted a lot more variety of things, but less of each. For instance, we only planted 9 tomato plants which didn’t really produce enough at any one time to make a canner full of tomatoes. The cauliflower never produced and while the broccoli did, it took up a lot of space for what amounted to one meal of broccoli for each plant. This year I would have liked to plant some brussels sprouts, but we didn’t get around to starting anything from seed (due to having a new baby) and the none of the nurseries had any this year. I hope the pumpkins produce. They have quite a long growing season and I would have normally started them indoors, but I’m crossing my fingers because they do OK in colder weather.
